Bridgetown, Barbados – The West Indies Cricket Board’s Selection Panel has named 18 players for a four-week camp in Barbados. The squad is preparing for a seven-match series against South Africa in January and the International Cricket Council’s Women’s World Cup in India in late January and February.

The camp is being held at the Sagicor High Performance Centre at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies and will run until December 15. The players will be under the guidance of Head Coach Sherwin Campbell, who has been in charge of the West Indies Women’s programme for over four years.

The squad includes most of the players who represented the West Indies at the ICC World T20 Championship in Sri Lanka, when they reached the semi-finals. Two newcomers have been called-up. They are Shemilia Connell, a six-foot tall, right-arm pacer from Barbados; and another Barbadian Kyshonna Knight, a left-handed top-order batter. Knight joins her twin sister Kycia in the squad.

“It is great that we have the players assembled in one place so we can work on their skills and plan strategy. We did well in Sri Lanka, so we want to use that as momentum to take us forward. This camp will be vital and should help with the development of our team. We will stress a lot on teamwork,” said Campbell, the former West Indies opener and vice captain.

“In this camp we will be working on several aspects of the game. The main areas will be to improve the skills of the players and their fitness levels. We have the series against South Africa coming up, and that should get us off and running in the first week of the year. After that, we will be off to India for the World Cup and that is a ‘big’ tournament for us. We need to make sure that we are in tip-top shape when we face the best in the world.”

The West Indies will face South Africa in five One-Day Internationals and two T20 Internationals. The full match schedule will be announced in the coming weeks.

The ICC Women’s World Cup India 2013 will be held in Mumbai from January 31 to February 17. The tournament will feature the top eight One-Day women’s sides in the world – Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies.

The matches will be played at five venues across Mumbai: Wankhede Stadium, Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Cricket Club of India (CCI), Middle Income Group Club Ground (MIG) and DY Patil Stadium.